Melissa A. Fabello

Dirty talk takes practice, but practice makes perfect. And watching your partner orgasm over video is almost as satisfying as it is in real life. I promise.

"A common response that folks struggling with eating disorders hear is something along the lines of “Just eat,” “Just stop purging,” or “Just stop overeating.” And that’s akin to telling someone with depression to “Cheer up” or someone with anxiety to “Calm down.” That is: It’s not effective. At all. It’s actually kind of offensive."

I was jealous of the dog. “That dog gets to be so thin,” I tried to explain, tearfully, to my partner, “and it doesn’t even have to try. I’ll never be that thin.”

Another awesome idea, whether the relationship is new or established, is to look at a sexual inventory checklist (like this one). The list goes through different sexual situations that are important to discuss with a partner – from body boundaries to birth control and safer sex options to what you’ve done, what you’d like to try, and what’s a big “no” for you. It’s a great, less-awkward avenue to talking about sex in a big way and to understand one another’s needs more intimately.

And as much as I’m a Swifty, I’m a feminist first (a white one, by the way, at that), and I’m not here for any kind of feminism that would excuse, for instance, Taylor’s misunderstanding that race is irrelevant in pop culture politics (a la the feud with Nicki Minaj that never was).

The list on the board filled up with words like “ambitious,” “curious,” “intelligent,” and “dedicated.” And as my professor was wrapping up the activity, I sighed and raised my hand.

Street harassment. Eating disorders. Rape — three times, including one storyline that involved Zoe being sexually violated at a party by two star athletes who filmed the assault and distributed the video online. Intimate partner violence. Sexist school dress codes. Police brutality and racial profiling. Islamophobia. Sexting and child pornography.

I’m a big proponent of teaching our loved ones how, during the holidays, to be gentle with our eating disorders (both in recovery and out).

So you’re on a diet, and you’re really pumped about it. You truly, honestly believe that you’re—say—“getting your body back” post-partum (that’s a harmful concept) or improving your fitness a la the latest technological tracking device (that’s also a harmful concept). And while I think we need to throw a lot of these ideas in the trash, I’m also understanding of how diet culture makes you believe that these are good things – things, in fact, to brag about.

In my experience dating and sleeping with straight, cisgender dudes who worship hegemonic masculinity, I’ve noticed that there’s something really — umm — special about how they go about sexuality.